Beyond the Barricade
by ferain1832
Summary: AU: What if Enjolras's unfurling of wings had a medical diagnosis? Featuring the leader of the Friends of the ABC, 'monomania', allegations of insanity, a volatile political climate, conflict between loyalties and Combeferre taking on more than he envisaged.
1. Prologue

Enjolras had always been a solitary child. For as long as he could remember, the fields and streams of his father's estate had been the only places where he did not feel ill at ease. To keep far away from the shadowy corridors of the empty house his father occupied, the prodding of his tutor and the leering smiles of rare visitors, was the sole escape route his life provided. His father had often told him off for such unsociable manners and an unsmiling demeanor, it was inappropriate and impolite, he said.

It must have been for this reason that, at thirteen years of age, the sheltered and innocent Enjolras had been allowed a little more freedom in the shape of a place in the local secondary school. Whatever the reasoning, it had been his father's greatest mistake. The school had served as a window into a world whose icy breath forever disturbed the eternal summer of Enjolras's childhood.

Sitting underneath his favourite elm tree on the bank of a little stream, Enjolras's thoughts drifted towards their usual target. They had taught him so much in that school, gerunds and Euclid and the greatness of Homer, yet they forgot to dwell on problems far more essential. Nobody explained to him, even when he asked, why there were women with babies sitting on the ground outside their school, even when it rained or snowed. Each time he brought up the puzzling matter of why there were children half their age going up chimneys or carrying weights, people simply threw him an uneasy smile and told him not to ask so many questions. At any mention of that other side of their town, those _other_ people that seemed for some reason so different from themselves, he was simply told to mind his own business. Some people were more fortunate than others, it seemed. Either that, or, according to his old nurse, this was the Lord's way.

The ease with which these neat phrases were thrown around frightened Enjolras. He understood what it meant to have a hard heart and no compassion, this concept was entirely familiar to him. What he could not grasp was why seemingly good, kind people appeared to simply not see the importance of the questions he asked. It was as if they lived their lives in pretense, wrapped in a cocoon of health and wealth, denying the existence of those others that walked past them on the streets every day. What did it mean to mind his own business? Was it simply another way to avoid responsibility?

Every day he tried to lay it all out in his mind, yet this was not a simple matter of facts to be put into an equation. The dark pictures whirled before his eyes, all coming together into a wave of unanswered questions that threatened to overwhelm him. What, was there really no compassion to be found in the world? Should one simply ignore the suffering and wrongdoing around him? Could it be true that people thought only of themselves and would not rise to help their neighbours? Were they all just fated to pretend, to fill their lives with duties and distractions and to forget the gaping tear in the fabric of the world?

"No," Enjolras cried in desperation, barely noticing that he was speaking out loud. "It cannot be so."

"It cannot be so."

The words sounded as if they had been spoken by someone else, though at the back of his mind he knew that he was completely alone.

The sky above him shone with an unparalleled brightness, through the feathery clouds that soon formed into shapes bizarrely resembling the avenging angels from his illustrated Bible. Perhaps they really were angels because soon they began to speak. They spoke of the tortured past and the glorious future and the struggle to come and the sacrifices that must be made and they filled his head with visions of the people in unity and concord, of universal happiness, of freedom and peace and everything that his world lacked.

Later, when he was back inside, his heart no longer racing and the troubling questions having settled temporarily into the back of his mind, Enjolras recalled that strange afternoon and concluded that he must have fallen asleep in the sun.

That couldn't have been entirely true, he ended up realising, because the visions and voices followed him through the years. From time to time, and with increasing frequency, whenever he was tired, run down, overwhelmed with the grandeur of the task he was faced with, they would return and give him a glimpse of what he was fighting for. At first it bemused him, in time he got used to it. Perhaps this was not an entirely normal occurrence, yet there were many ways in which Enjolras found himself not entirely resembling ordinary people and this was the least important one.


	2. Chapter 1

"Quickly! Get inside!"

Once in the safety of Combeferre's apartment, the three men leaned against the corridor walls, breathing heavily.

"I did not expect that," Courfeyrac gasped. "One would think that we are not on their side."

"The people often turn precisely on those who are trying to help them," Combeferre said bitterly. "They are not to blame for this. They have learnt to associate us with trouble and danger, what do you expect?"

"Well," Courfeyrac shrugged his shoulders, "a little more support would have pleased me greatly."

They had been attempting to rally the public spirit in the Latin Quarter, Enjolras arguing that they could not depend exclusively on the workers of Saint-Avoyé. The poor of the Left Bank, however, less desperate than those of the Right and less aware of their revolutionary duty than the consecrated _sans-culottes_ of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, decided not to trust the three students with their salvation and nearly attacked them instead.

"We shall go back there soon," Combeferre said, "better equipped with pamphlets and reasoning. Right, Enjolras?"

"Precisely," Enjolras said.

There was something about his voice that made Combeferre turn back towards him.

Enjolras was standing behind him, his face half obscured by the shadows of the dim corridor. For some reason, his hand was pressed tightly against his left temple.

"Enjolras?"

Stepping towards him, Combeferre was alarmed to see a strangely unfocused expression emerge in Enjolras's eyes, as if he was looking at him and through him at the same time.

Courfeyrac, too, came up to him with a slight frown on his face. "_Mon cher_, are you alright?"

"Absolutely," Enjolras said, after a few moments of silence.

Now thoroughly disconcerted, Combeferre simply took him by the shoulders and led him through to the living room. Enjolras followed obediently, walking a little unsteadily through the piles of medical journals on the floor.

Sitting Enjolras down on his own _chaise-longue_, Combeferre attempted to take his hand off his temple and was met with some resistance. At last, gently prising his fingers away, Combeferre was shocked to see the normally pristine blond hair matted and covered in blood.

"Courfeyrac, run for some water," Combeferre ordered curtly, "and get me some bandages on your way, they're in that cupboard."

Enjolras suddenly tried to stand up. "We must go," he declared, "the police will - "

"What police?" Combeferre said gently, diagnoses already buzzing in his head. "We weren't followed home, Courfeyrac made sure of that."

"That can't be... Did you not see him? What if he… We must - "

"Just get the water," Combeferre nodded to Courfeyrac who was hovering uncertainly in the doorway. "Don't worry," he continued to Enjolras, the words _mild to medium head trauma_ making it hard for himself to remain calm. "We are perfectly safe."

Enjolras looked up at him, with the same hazy but earnestly apprehensive expression in his eyes. "They think so too," he said, "but shouldn't we be sure?"

"They? Who are they?"

Enjolras did not reply. Instead his glance wandered somewhere beyond Combeferre's shoulder, seemingly at the overloading bookshelves but not quite. Courfeyrac soon returned and Combeferre began to clean the wound, noting with relief that the bleeding had been stemmed already.

"Who did you mean, they?" Combeferre inquired once more.

Enjolras just shrugged his shoulders.

Combeferre secured the bandages around his head, his swift fingers matching the rapid progression of his thoughts. Could the trauma have been significant enough to cause _commotio cerebri?_ There had been no penetration of the _dura mater_, thankfully, the bleeding was merely superficial. Was the blow his friend must have suffered severe enough to cause mild delirium?

He examined his pupils; they seemed perfectly natural, neither overly dilated nor constricted. Respiration was somewhat elevated, the pulse certainly above average.

"You're right," Enjolras suddenly spoke, "I'll make sure of it. They will see."

Combeferre and Courfeyrac exchanged glances.

"Go back to the Musain," Combeferre said to him. "Tell the others what happened. Enjolras needs rest."

"Will he be alright?" Courfeyrac whispered back.

"It must be concussion," Combeferre concluded, somewhat against his instincts, "a mild one, if so. He will recover quickly with supervision."

Putting Enjolras to bed was a difficult task. Permanently trying to escape Combeferre's firm grasp, he continued to talk with increasing eagerness about worryingly disjointed concepts.

"That picture on the wall," he was saying, "is not revolutionary. Take it off. Just like Corsica… The young man, you shouldn't have sung at him. They'd disagree. Fraternity and freedom, even for those who aren't with us. Do you remember Desmoulins? No, stop! It isn't night yet..."

Fearing inflammation of the brain, Combeferre decided to follow procedure. First a purging mixture of senna and magnesium hydroxide, then, benefiting from the relative placidity into which the operation had plunged Enjolras, he took the opportunity to open the medial basilic vein and draw 500 milliliters of blood. He personally had some issues with bloodletting, namely when used in conjunction with a previous loss of blood, yet he decided not to use Enjolras as a trial for his ideas.

"Why?" Enjolras asked, frowning at the steady trickle of blood dripping into the basin. "I am not ill."

"I'm afraid it is me who decides that," Combeferre smiled. "Now would you do me a favour and try to sleep?"

Funnily enough, Enjolras obeyed. Within ten minutes he was asleep though not peacefully so, shifting and sighing every now and again, his eyelashes trembling imperceptibly, pale fingers clutching the edge of the blanket which somehow managed to get stained with blood. Combeferre sat beside the bed, plunged into deep thought.

He had not seen Enjolras get his injury, indeed, his friend had the reputation of being able to effortlessly get the better of most opponents. It was surprising to see him so hurt when normally Enjolras walked out of all scrapes as unscathed as if some halo had been protecting him. What's more, during his internship at the Necker hospital he had seen many concussions, commotions and enough head trauma to last a lifetime. A superficial wound that seemed to have come rather from a scratch than a collision, could that really have produced so strong an effect?

This was not the first time Combeferre had noticed Enjolras talking to himself. He had paid little attention to it when it had happened before, assuming that he was drafting speeches or something of the sort. It wasn't as it Enjolras was precisely a run-of-the-mill individual in any case. He already lived in a world that wasn't quite the same as everyone else's. Combeferre had learned to accept that a long time ago. Yet this…

Enjolras stirred and slowly opened his eyes, looking round the room with a frown. If Combeferre hadn't witnessed the events of the last few hours, he'd have had some difficulty noticing there being anything wrong. The strange unfocused expression was replaced by Enjolras's usual keen glance, the anxious frown became merely a quizzical one… Apart from a little pallor and the bandage on his head, there seemed to be nothing wrong with him.

"Why am I in bed, Combeferre?" he asked sternly, lifting himself up on one elbow.

"Do you not remember?"

"Vaguely." Now he sat up completely, despite Combeferre's restraining gestures. "May I not get up?"

"Certainly not," Combeferre said, pushing him gently back under the blanket. "You need rest, or else your concussion will turn into an inflammation of the brain. Is that what you want?"

"But I feel absolutely fine."

"They all say that, then they suddenly get worse," Combeferre said firmly. "You should have seen yourself two hours ago. You were completely delirious."

"Delirious? How?"

"You were ranting about all manner of things," Combeferre, smiling with relief now that his hesitant suspicions have clearly been proven wrong. "Talking about Corsica and insulting my favourite paintings, for one, not to mention your fascinating conversations with non-existent strangers."

Enjolras shrugged his shoulders. "What of that?"

"Well," Combeferre laughed, "you often declare your disgust with Corsica and don't seem to care much for _Nicolaes Tulp _or _Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer_, but you don't ordinarily have disembodied voices speak to you, do you? Hence you must have suffered a rather serious blow to the head."

Enjolras threw him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry about my head," he said. "The voices are perfectly normal. I've had them for years."

It was as if an icy hand had closed its fist around his heart. "…What did you say?"

"Why are you so pale?" Enjolras inquired with a look of concern. "It's fine, I promise you."

A few seconds had to pass before Combeferre could bring himself to speak. "What are these voices?" he asked in the end. "Where do they come from?"

"I don't know," Enjolras simply said. "I don't really understand it. They just come and go. I don't mind them. What's the harm of it?"

The earnest look in his eyes made Combeferre's heart constrict even further. Taking his smaller hands in his, he just looked at Enjolras's uncomprehending face as he tried to formulate some sort of plan.

"I'm afraid there might be some harm," he said gently, "especially if we leave this untreated."

"What is there to treat?" Enjolras protested.

"Enjolras," Combeferre said, hating every syllable that was about to emerge from his mouth, "this isn't precisely normal. You shall have to see a doctor."

"You are my doctor."

Combeferre squeezed his hands a little tighter. "I have no expertise in this area," he said. "You will need to…see a professional."


	3. Chapter 2

"Well then, Monsieur Enjolras, how often would you say these... voices and visions occur?"

The interview was taking place in Combeferre's own sitting room. The specialist, one Dr Bouvet, a one-time colleague of the revered Esquirol, occupied an armchair opposite Enjolras's _chaise longue_, with Combeferre as an arbitrator on the side. Enjolras had insisted on Combeferre's presence, rejecting all arguments of privacy and lack of necessity.

"Once in a while," Enjolras answered, sounding utterly reluctant. It had taken Combeferre a while to persuade him that this meeting was of the absolute importance. "Whenever they are needed."

"And how would you describe their effect on you? Would you say that they push you towards a state of overexcitement?"

"Not overexcitement," Enjolras said brusquely. "They merely motivate me."

"Indeed? Would you be so kind as to tell me what they consist of?"

Enjolras's eyes were lighting up with a sort of dangerous fervor that Combeferre would have preferred not to see during a medical appointment. "They talk about the future," he declared. "They give me a glimpse of a time when all injustices will be eradicated and all men will be made equal. They show me what it is…"

He trailed off just in time and Combeferre breathed out a surreptitious sigh of relief. The last thing they needed was for Enjolras to mount an impassioned defence of liberty in front of a conservative medical practitioner.

The doctor was already frowning. "I fear that the cause of your illness may be rather evident, monsieur," he said. "Your mental faculties seem to have been disturbed by a fixation upon dangerous libertine ideology."

"I - "

"Moreover," he continued, "I must warn you that moral uncleanliness and similar behavior would certainly have contributed to your current state. If you have been practicing fornication or onanism, I would advise you to disclose it."

Enjolras just blinked. Combeferre doubted that his thoroughly virginal friend even knew what the two words meant.

After a few more questions the doctor turned to Combeferre. "May I speak to you now, monsieur?"

Combeferre led him out to the corridor, feeling Enjolras's keen glance on his back the entire time.

"Naturally, monsieur Combeferre, most of my questions must be addressed to you. Is your friend normally as agitated as he was just now?"

"At times," Combeferre reluctantly admitted. "Yet is it surely nothing but enthusiasm."

"Enthusiasm that is dangerous, given his other symptoms."

"What would you diagnose it as?"

The doctor made a mysterious grimace. "He seems to be of generally sound judgement, is he not?"

"Absolutely," Combeferre hastened to say. "He is an excellent student and a perfectly sound individual. Of course," he had to admit, "he has always been…somewhat eccentric."

"Is he prone to melancholy?"

"Not more than the usual person," he said with relief. "In fact, significantly less."

"I would personally call this a rather straightforward case of monomania," the doctor concluded. "The patient is fixated with one particular aspect of his environment and suffers from derangement only when in contact with it, otherwise seeming rather normal."

"What would you prescribe?"

"You are a doctor of medicine yourself, are you not?"

"In training."

"And my patient has no relatives, you say?"

"None," Combeferre nodded, internally protesting against that cold term, _patient_.

"Would you then be willing to take some responsibility over him?"

"Absolutely."

When he eventually returned to the sitting room, the vexed expression on Enjolras's face did not bode well.

"What was the point of that?" he asked, with a glare in the direction of the armchair where the doctor had been sitting.

"A very direct and immediate point," Combeferre said patiently, sitting down next to him. "He has told me what he thinks you have and how to treat it."

"So what is it then," Enjolras said scornfully, "that I supposedly have?"

Combeferre tried to explain, as gently as he could. What was there to say though to alleviate the blow? The revolution was Enjolras's life. To tell him that he needs to avoid it if he values his sanity was to tell him to give up all that made him who he was.

"If you want to recover fully," he was saying, "you should ideally leave Paris for a while. We could go traveling, to England or even America. You always wanted to see America, didn't you?"

Enjolras just shook his head indignantly. "How can I leave Paris? You know how things are unfolding. A few months and perhaps the situation will be right. Neither of us could possibly leave now."

"Enjolras," Combeferre tried again, "you need to understand that in order to recover - "

"To recover from what?" Enjolras cut him off. "During the barricades of 1830, was I ever incapable of taking part?"

"Perhaps not," Combeferre admitted, "but during that time, were you ever rendered delirious by a light head injury? If this is getting worse, Enjolras, how long before you start getting something a little more serious than helpful revolutionary visions?"

"In that case," Enjolras said after a pause, turning to him with look of quiet sadness, "treat me how you see fit. I only ask of you, don't make me leave Paris. Anything else you want me to do, I will do it, as long as I am here."

They started treatment straight away. The doctor recommended warm baths to reduce vascular excitement and accordingly the fire was lit, the water heated, the bathtub filled, and soon Enjolras was obediently occupying it. With his hair plastered down and his knees sticking out of the water, he looked much like a seven year old getting ready for bed.

"You know," he was saying, "I am hardly sure what is making me more stressed, actually doing my work or sitting here thinking about how I could be doing it as we speak."

"Try not to think about any work," Combeferre said. "Imagine yourself on holiday."

"But I am not on holiday," Enjolras protested, vaguely trying to stretch himself out in the small tub and sending a light spray of water Combeferre's way as he did so. "The work will not go away if I simply ignore it."

Combeferre let out an exasperated sigh. "Enjolras, you must understand the gravity of your situation. Your illness may not be a direct injury which you can see but that does not make it any less serious. You have to take care of yourself - "

"I do understand that," Enjolras said. "Yet the fact remains that there are things that must be done and which cannot just be put aside."

"Then myself and the rest of the Amis will take some of the load off your shoulders."

Enjolras sighed. "If you insist."

Courfeyrac, in whom Combeferre confided fully, feeling unable to bear the weight knowledge quite on his own, had passed on some of that information onto the rest of the group. They both agreed that there was no need for any formal announcement of their leader's diminished capacity to serve in that function, instead Courfeyrac simply said that Enjolras was ill and needed some rest.

At first, their surprise may well have been justified. On the outside Enjolras seemed to be precisely the same as he had always been; the usual mixture of intensity, aloofness, otherworldliness and endearing eccentricity that made Enjolras who he was. Yet as the months progressed, Combeferre had noticed to his horror that his illness was becoming more and more apparent with every passing day.

Despite Combeferre's best efforts, Enjolras was getting worse. He had taken to pacing around the sitting room, looking remarkably like a caged lion ready to devour anyone who stood in his way. Every evening Combeferre took him out on a walk, judging that fresh air could only help, and found himself having to steer Enjolras away from every aspect of the streets, from posters stuck to lampposts to lonely flower girls that looked as if they could benefit from a little revolutionary rallying.

"Just one word," Enjolras pleaded, clasping the sleeve of Combeferre's coat. "What's the harm in it? All I want is to give her a few sous and tell her of the speech that Courfeyrac is doing in Saint-Antoine tomorrow."

"I am sure she already knows of it," Combeferre said firmly. "Come, let's turn left here and take a look round the Jardin des Plantes. There is a lovely rose garden, not to mention those two cedar trees that Pitton de Tournefort brought from Lebanon in 1734 - "

"What do roses and cedar trees have to do with anything?" Enjolras exclaimed, still looking hopefully in the direction of the flower girl. "Couldn't we at least stop by the Place de l'Odéon afterwards? Joly was saying that _Julius Caesar _is on at the Theatre and the polytechnicians gather every night to applaud Brutus and Cassius and whistle down the tyrant."

"That may very well be so," Combeferre admitted, steering Enjolras away from that royal proclamation on the wall.

"Well, couldn't we go? I haven't been to the theatre since last year and I know how much you love Shakespeare."

Combeferre wasn't about to give in. The polytechnicians didn't only clap and whistle, they were also known to throw bricks from the gallery at the officers in the dress circle. This sort of excitement was strictly forbidden.

"We could go to Le Peletier if you want," he said, "_Robert le Diable_ is still on."

"Fine," Enjolras said, looking a little less disheartened now. "Can we get tickets for this evening?"

They did manage to secure two seats for the evening's performance and to see Enjolras excitedly looking around the auditorium and studying the programme with unusual attention pained Combeferre more than he cared to admit. His friend must really have been bored out of his mind to enjoy so much something that a few months ago he would have rejected with an unconcerned shrug.

Part of Combeferre could not deny the simple fact that Enjolras was bored. That same part also insisted on reminding him that boredom alone would make Enjolras as stressed, impatient and irritable as he had become. The other part, the one that respected Dr Bouvet's authority as a famous medical practitioner, agreed with his views that this was merely the object of his mania becoming more apparent in Enjolras's consciousness.

Upon hearing this, the doctor ordered to keep Enjolras away from all things that could remind him of his obsession, which, in the current political climate, was akin to placing him under house arrest. Though he understood the reasoning behind this perfectly well, Combeferre couldn't quite bring himself to do it. The way Enjolras's eyes lit up every time they went to the Musain, the aureole of pure soaring passion that emanated from him on those rare occasions when he spoke to crowds in the faubourgs, the dejection which ran across his face whenever Combeferre gently advised him not to do something… It felt as if he was clipping the wings of a lark.

Still, most of his time Enjolras spent at home, mostly reading for his degree, sometimes perusing the various novels and poetry Combeferre offered to him as entertainment, very often, to Combeferre's alarm, retreating into himself.

He had found him one evening sitting on the wide windowsill which opened onto the streets, gazing at the setting sun behind the rooftops opposite with a look of bittersweet longing on his pale and drawn face. Coming closer, Combeferre could see his arms wrapped around his knees and his lips moving slowly, not loud enough to be heard.

He came up to him and put an arm on his shoulder. Enjolras turned around, the familiar and dreaded hazy expression in his eyes, sending alarm bells across Combeferre's mind.

"What were you thinking about?" he asked.

"I was imagining the future," Enjolras said quietly. "Just think, if the government gave stipends for secondary education then every child in France could attend school and take the _baccalauréat. _Every child in France literate, every child able to do mathematics. Every child allowed to choose his path in life, without restrictions imposed by his parentage. Would that not be beautiful? Is that not worth fighting for?"

"Absolutely," Combeferre said, the thought setting fire to his imagination. "Then every child could explore the vast fount of knowledge that the previous generations have built up over the centuries, no longer pushed only to what would provide a livelihood. There would be new thoughts, new inventions, new ideas; a true victory of the Moderns over the Ancients. We would not be restricted by the same volume of information produced two thousand years ago, we could absorb it and move forwards to the future."

Now Enjolras was smiling, a radiant smile that made Combeferre almost forget the jutting cheekbones and the bags under his eyes. "And a whole world of inventions and miracles and cures: in a word, progress."

They talked for at least ten more minutes until the clock behind them began ringing six, reminding Combeferre of where they were.

"You'll need to take the emetic now," he said reluctantly. The doctor had recently prescribed tartarised antimony to stimulate Enjolras out of precisely the kind of melancholy he had found him in.

The radiance on his face swiftly changed to desperation. "Must I?"

"You know that you must."

"Just a few more minutes," he pleaded, "just so we can finish this conversation. We haven't talked like that in months. It is as if we were back in the old days, before - "

Combeferre yearned to agree, to cast aside all the treatments and emetics and bans on revolutionary conversation and to return to their old existence, to the time when they were both happy, both…

"Let us just get it out of the way," he said instead.

"But it doesn't help me," Enjolras protested, "not the slightest bit. I haven't ingested poison, neither do I have any gastric ailments. Why in the world would it be beneficial for me to empty my stomach's contents on a regular basis?"

"Don't argue," Combeferre sighed. "There are direct medical benefits of purging one's body, which is why Dr Bouvet has instructed you to do so."

Filling a tall glass with wine, he dissolved six grains of antimony into it, then presented it to Enjolras.

"Why does it have to be wine as well? Could you not simply mix it with water?"

"It will be more effective this way," Combeferre said, bracing himself for the cruel procedure. "Have you eaten?"

"What is the point of eating," Enjolras muttered, taking the glass, "when this is what you do afterwards?"

Combeferre put a hand on his shoulder. "I promise," he said, "this will make you better."

Briefly, the slim fingers closed around his hand. "I trust you."

And in three resolute gulps, Enjolras drained the glass.

The effects followed relatively soon. Holding the basin and stroking Enjolras's back, Combeferre only wished that it was himself who had to go through this, not the ephemeral young man who had been made for higher things.

When it was over and Enjolras was lying down again on his _chaise longue_, Combeferre couldn't quite meet his eye, knowing already the look of weary suffering that he would see. Instead, he came over and silently put his arms around him.

He did not resume his standing posture until Enjolras's heavy breathing had turned into an even slumber.


	4. Chapter 3

They celebrated Christmas in the same way they had always done, a gathering in the Musain. Combeferre was relieved to note that although the Amis saw significantly less of Enjolras these days, he still remained unequivocally their leader.

The dim lighting of the back room and the raucous conversation made it very easy for Combeferre to forget that anything had occurred in the past few months. On the surface, everything seemed just as it was in the old days. The room had been diligently Noël-ified by the efforts of Prouvaire and Courfeyrac, resulting in an odd mix of angelic figurines, pagan garlands of holly and mistletoe, a strew of nuts and apples and an inordinate amount of wine bottles. Prouvaire himself was engaged in deep conversation with Feuilly on the origin and symbolic significance of the Three Magi. Joly, Bossuet and Bahorel were loudly discussing the newly reopened Theatre Molière.

"I think it is promising personally," Bossuet was saying. "Who can tell, perhaps the new directors will make a theatre of the future!"

"Not anymore it won't," Joly laughed, "not now that you have given it your seal of approval."

"It was doomed for all eternity when they made it into a ballroom," Grantaire said, leaning back in his chair philosophically. "Once the first quadrille had been played within its precincts, Melpomene fled, giving way to her charming but lesser rival, Thalia."

Enjolras himself was doing precisely what he had always done in these situations, silently observing the scene, only occasionally putting in a word or two. Sitting in an armchair beside the fireplace, a barely touched glass of wine in his hand, the expression on his face was the most contented one Combeferre had seen in months. The warmth of the room gave his skin the colour it had lacked for weeks, while the flickering shadows obscured the worst of the marks left by weariness and strain.

"He looks better," Courfeyrac said hopefully, "doesn't he?"

"Right now he does," Combeferre said, bathing in the smile that played on his friend's lips. "When we go back to our apartment, it will no longer be so."

"Surely the treatments must be helping?"

"In a way," Combeferre said evasively. "You must understand that this is such a subjective and underexplored area of medicine. What works for one patient may not work for another."

"Perhaps you should try another doctor?"

"It isn't the doctor's fault. He is doing what he can."

Courfeyrac sighed. "I wish he would do more."

A minute later he went over to Enjolras, pouncing on him from behind like a particularly affectionate tiger. Watching his eyes light up like they haven't done in weeks, Combeferre could only wish that he could distill Courfeyrac's _joie de vivre _and prescribe a hefty dose of it to Enjolras.

In truth, none of the treatments they had undertaken made any noticeable difference. Combeferre had tried to observe the doctor's advice for a sheltered and calm lifestyle as much as he possibly could, they had gone through numerous emetics, purgatives, various herbal medications from digitalis to hellebore, they tried counter-irritation and blisters and camphor salves and must have drawn twice the amount of blood that Enjolras's entire body contained. Yet whatever they did, Enjolras continued to get progressively worse.

They came home late that night and Combeferre advised Enjolras to go straight to bed. Luckily Enjolras obeyed without much argument and soon they were settled in their usual positions, Enjolras stretched out on the _chaise longue_, Combeferre working at his desk on the other side of the room, only a single candle lighting his papers.

He was three quarters of his way through Lostalot-Bachoué's treatise on the causes of epidemics when he noticed that Enjolras's patterns of turning over were inconsistent with sleep. His watch showed twenty past two in the morning.

Walking gently over to him, Combeferre was dismayed to see that Enjolras was indeed wide awake.

"What is it?" he whispered, kneeling beside him. "Are you feeling ill?"

Enjolras sat up, propping himself on one elbow, and shook his head. "I just cannot fall asleep," he said. "Thoughts keep coming to me and I can't stop myself from thinking them through."

"What sort of thoughts?"

"Things to be done and said before the end," Enjolras said pensively. "Also memories. Do you remember that day we went to the Bois de Boulogne for your tadpoles and got caught in the rain?"

"_Alytes obstericans,_" Combeferre corrected him out of habit. He remembered that day perfectly, with its thunderstorm and Enjolras's cry of horror when he dropped his briefcase full of papers into an overflowing stream. Another thought cut across the idyllic canvas: "What do you mean, _before the end_?"

"The people are getting more agitated by the day," Enjolras said, in the same contemplative tone. "It won't be very long now until they are ready to rise. Before that happens, we all need to do our best to ensure that we, on our part, are equally ready to lead them."

"There will be time to think of that tomorrow," Combeferre hurried to say before Enjolras got carried away by the revolution. "Right now, try to sleep."

"I was trying already."

"I could sing you a lullaby if you want," Combeferre offered with a smile.

A welcome shadow of a grin appeared on Enjolras's lips. "I'm not quite five years old anymore."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"If you wish," Enjolras said, leaning back on his pillow, the grin now becoming definite. "I cannot say I've had much experience of lullabies or any knowledge of their efficacy. My nurse wasn't a terribly affectionate woman."

"Then we must remedy this," Combeferre said, suddenly hit by a wave of memories of all those years in their little vine-covered cottage, the sharp fragrance of lavender in their back garden and the sound of his mother's lullabies, his mother who was so far away in Bordeaux and whom he so rarely saw now…

Moving onto the edge of the _chaise longue_, Combeferre began to sing softly:

"_Au clair de la lune,/Mon ami Pierrot,/Prête-moi ta plume/Pour écrire un mot,/Ma chandelle est morte,/Je n'ai plus de feu,/Ouvre-moi ta porte/Pour l'amour de Dieu…"_

Enjolras raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Soon enough, his grip on the edge of the blanket relaxed, his chest began to rise and fall evenly, his eyelashes fluttered shut. Combeferre continued singing, quieter now, unable to resist stroking his soft curls.

After a while, convinced that Enjolras was asleep, he stood up quietly, taking care not to trip over the pile of journals on the floor. For once, the expression on Enjolras's face was that of angelic peace. Gone were the frustration, disappointment, fatigue, suffering, which have become such a familiar sight. Combeferre was not sure if there was a God, yet had there been one, all his prayers would have been directed onto the simple act of keeping that tranquillity on his friend's face for all eternity.

The peace only lasted a few nights. Time after time, despite all the warm baths and herbal teas, Enjolras continued tossing and turning into the small hours of the morning, with no amount of singing making the slightest difference. Most likely trying to spare Combeferre some disappointment, Enjolras settled down after some time and pretended to be fast asleep, leaving Combeferre to pace nervously in his own bedroom, trying to think of more remedies they could try.

After a week and a half of seeing Enjolras paler and more ghostly than ever, trying to improve his non-existent appetite and unable to prevent him falling momentarily asleep while leaning against the wall, Combefere consulted the doctor. The latter prescribed precisely what Combeferre had anticipated - a considerable dose of opium. Esquirol had argued against the use of opiates in cases of mental illness, to be sure, fearing that their effect may be to worsen delirium, yet in extreme cases such as this there was hardly any option.

Upon hearing the news, Enjolras was unusually piqued.

"What good is such a drug going to do?" he protested, glaring at Combeferre as he came back from the doctor. "You are the one who told me these atrocious stories of opium dens in London. Why on earth? - "

"This will not at all be like that," Combeferre explained patiently. "This is a perfectly well established medical custom which has been proven to work without the evil effects of the real drug. I will have you know that laudanum, one of the most common medicines of the age, is a tincture of opium. There is nothing at all unusual about any of this."

Enjolras sighed. "I trusted you thus far," he said. "I should hardly stop trusting you now."

And though he threw him a grateful smile, Combeferre was left with the unnerving feeling that he really had not done Enjolras any good in the past few months.

That first evening, after administering the prescribed dosage of two grains, Combeferre watched Enjolras's rapturous, dreamy smile with a mixture of relief and concern. On the one hand, after fifteen minutes of slightly garbled conversation his friend was fast asleep and did not wake up until well after dawn the next morning. On the other hand, if Enjolras from half a year ago had seen himself as he was then, reclining limply on his _chaise longue_, his usually keen and stern glance replaced by a languid meditation, he would have been horrified.

They continued in this way for a week, after which Combeferre found it necessary to double the dosage in order for it to have the same effect. He had voiced his concerns to the doctor, who brushed them all off with stories of a Dr Galloni who prescribed up to 170 grains a day to a patient in a state of furious mania. The upward trajectory increased still, until one day Combeferre, now seriously worried, allowed Enjolras to miss a day's dosage and to his dismay, found him not only unable to fall asleep at all but exhibiting on the next day a full set of influenza-like symptoms. Enjolras had the strength of character not to ask for the drug, yet from his feverish complexion and trembling fingers Combeferre could glean the matter as well as if he had said it.

Soon after, when the snowdrops on his windowsills began to bloom, Combeferre returned to their apartment one afternoon only to find Enjolras sitting at his desk, his head buried in his folded arms on top of some papers, apparently fast asleep.

Coming over to him on tiptoes, Combeferre gently pulled him back by the shoulder, aiming to gently transport him to his bed. Perhaps he had not been careful enough, because Enjolras immediately opened his eyes and looked at him with bleary confusion.

That hazy expression, the heavy breathing and the cheeks unnaturally blotched with red immediately rang alarm bells in Combeferre's mind, now polished in quick diagnoses. He touched his forehead and was not surprised to find it burning.

"Come," he said gently to Enjolras, "you must get to bed. Just lean on me and - "

"I'm… fine," Enjolras mumbled, trying to raise himself with the help of the desk. "Don't… worry, just…"

He pushed himself up, tried to take a step in no particular direction, then stumbled and collapsed into Combeferre's outstretched arms.


	5. Chapter 4

The sweltering heat sent trickles of sweat down Enjolras's forehead as he walked along the Rue Clovis, on his way to the Panthéon. Strangely enough, despite the fact that the glistening mercury on Combeferre's thermometer almost reached 30 degrees and the oppressive temperature was slowly suffocating him, Enjolras still felt a bizarre chill in his bones, as if his inside was somehow in a different continent to the outside. He had been a little ill for a while now, it must have been that still. Combeferre would have been worried, Enjolras was sure of it, hence why he did not think it wise to tell him of this trifling inconvenience.

He continued down the street, somewhat out of breath. There was to be a rally by the Panthéon that afternoon which he was determined not to miss. Combeferre and Courfeyrac would be waiting for him there, while the rest of the Amis were posted at strategic locations to distribute leaflets and rousing words to passing crowds.

At last he was weaving his way through heated crowds towards the steps of the Panthéon, exalting in the gilded words on its edifice: _AUX GRANDS HOMMES, LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE. _Those words were carved in a time when these great men gained such a title by conquest, oppression and obsequy, yet soon Patria took care of that; a new sort of men emerged, taking their rightful place among its walls: Marat, Rousseau, Picot, le Peletier…

Soon he was on the makeshift podium, consisting of a wooden crate, addressing a crowd whose faces were strangely blurry in the heat:

"Citizens, you stand here by a monument built to commemorate the great men of the past. Where, I ask you, are the great men of the present? They are in hiding, frittering away their lives in cafés and taverns, too afraid to declare their love for their motherland, too concerned with their studies or positions, caring too much for the opinions of those around them… I tell you, citizens, the opinion we need to preserve is not that of our contemporaries, no, it is that of the future inhabitants of the Earth. Let them not say about us, a hundred years later: "There were decent men who had failed in their duty?", as we say now about our great-grandfathers. No, let them remember us as valiant defenders of the Patrie, as those who paved the way towards liberty, equality, fraternity and all the glories of the future!"

The words were coming slowly out of his mouth. The heat, like a blanket thrown onto his shoulders, made any energetic movements particularly exacting. Yet he went on, distant whispers of support pushing him forward:

"I do not mean to tell you that each one of you must necessarily prepare to lay down his life at the altar of your country. I see in your faces that many of you are patriots, many of you brave men, yet bravery and patriotism come in different shapes. Some of you must fight, some of you must heal, some of you must write and some of you must speak, and all these pursuits will combine into one stream that will… "

Surveying the crowd as he spoke, Enjolras suddenly stopped short. In the very first row, staring right at him with horror and disgust, was Dr Bouvet.

His shock only lasted a moment. What, was he to be forever hounded by that odious man's unwanted attentions? Now was the time to prove to him that despite all his assumptions to the contrary, Enjolras was no irrational infant.

"A stream," he continued with a disdainful smile, "that must eventually break its banks and flood this land, a purifying flood that will wash away the filth of the ages!"

The crowd cheered, leaving Enjolras with the pleasing impression that they were ready to flood the banks of Paris any moment. He stepped down from the crate, and suddenly felt an arm on his shoulder.

Somehow, though Enjolras was sure that he had not taken his eyes off him, the doctor had appeared right behind him.

"Monsieur Enjolras," he said, in his familiar and detestable patronising tone, "you have proven yourself to be a monomaniac of a most dangerous kind. I fear I have no option but to commit you to a safer institution."

Enjolras opened his mouth to protest but no words issued forth. The heat, now positively blistering, surrounded him, choked him, until he had to gasp helplessly for air -

ooo

"Combeferre? Combeferre, come here, I have no clue what to do with him!"

Combeferre hurried into the apartment, letting the door swing shut behind. A hospital shift made it absolutely necessary for him to go out and leave Enjolras in the care of Courfeyrac, who was now making way for him with relief.

"He was just sleeping quietly," he was saying, "or I presume he was sleeping, and then he woke up and started talking, and now…"

Enjolras was attempting to climb out of bed, breathing in frantic gasps, on his face a simultaneously fearful and enraged expression. Knowing no better remedy than to restrain him, Combeferre grasped his shoulders, gently forcing him to look his way. Then, sitting down on the bed, he simply pulled him into a tight embrace.

The fever had gotten worse, he noted with concern; he could feel his burning skin through both their sets of clothes.

"I won't go," Enjolras was saying desperately, clutching at Combeferre's shoulderblades, "just try to make me!"

"Nobody is making you go anywhere," Combeferre said gently, stroking his back.

"Quite on the contrary," Courfeyrac added, with an attempted laugh, "what we need is for you to stay right here."

At last the heavy breathing subsided and Enjolras sank back onto the pillow, looking exhausted.

"What did he talk about?" Combeferre asked, benefiting from the moment of calm to slip a thermometer under his arm.

"He was quite hard to understand at times," Courfeyrac said, clearing a chair for him. They had moved Enjolras into Combeferre's own bedroom after he fell ill, Combeferre judging it a more comfortable surrounding. "It was generally a speech, quite a good one too, about great men and what our descendants will think of us."

"Did he talk to you?"

"Well… not really. It was more of an imaginary audience."

Combeferre sighed. "At the very least," he said, adjusting the array of flasks, ampoules and medical utensils on the bedside table, "I know what it is he is ill with now and how to deal with it."

"And what is it?"

"An ordinary fever," Combeferre said, "a simple malady of the body. Serious, but definable and treatable." He was so tired of treading in the dark, never knowing which way to turn, always on guard for the enemy to attack from yet another corner...

Courfeyrac nodded. "Say what you want," he suddenly declared, "but I don't think that this doctor of yours is doing a very good job. Poor Enjolras has been looking like Death himself for the last month: beautiful and wan. I would have bet ten to one that he would have ended up as he is now, one needs not to be a soothsayer to predict that."

"I told you," Combeferre said, "he is doing everything he can and has proposed most treatments known to modern science. It isn't his fault that they are not working in Enjolras's particular case, or that Enjolras himself is very reluctant to put any faith in them."

Eventually the thermometer was ready; Combeferre looked at it and and winced. "Cold compresses," he said, thinking out loud, "laudanum, then another round of bleeding, perhaps some calomel before bed, then more opium…"

"More?"

"He won't sleep otherwise."

At ten o'clock Combeferre sent Courfeyrac home, telling him that he will manage. He has managed every night for the last six months, he could surely manage another. Enjolras slept fitfully, seeming to make war upon his bedsheets, muttering something incomprehensible each time Combeferre made a move to change the compress on his forehead. He was reluctant to leave him alone, fearing a sudden turn for the worse.

ooo

He was back in Aix, it seemed, back to his beloved stream and elm tree, only now instead of the eternal sunshine of his memories the sky was stormy and the branches trembled in anxious anticipation. Despite the imminent rain Enjolras leant against the trunk of the tree, trying to picture once more that glorious afternoon and the stirring visions he had witnessed. Instead, a flood of mocking voices rushed to his ears:

"What, haven't you had enough by now of dreaming empty dreams? Can you not see how false they are?"

"There is nothing false about them," Enjolras protested. "What is there false and empty about wanting the best for mankind?"

"Aren't you tired of speaking to deaf ears? Don't you fear that when you need this mankind you love so much, they will not be there?"

"We are all doing our best to make them trust us," Enjolras replied, "and should they choose not to put their faith in us, so be it. Others will come who will do better than us."

"Others? What does that matter to you? You will be dead!"

"He that contributes to a cause bigger than his own life never truly dies, for that cause shall be his resurrection."

"And what if that cause should fail?"

"It shall not, since all things grow to the light and all truth triumphs in time."

Now his ears were filled with mocking laughter. "Are you so sure? No, the only sure thing in this life is death!"

And suddenly he saw Paris with its narrow streets filled with blue-and-red uniforms and cannons and smoke and half-demolished wooden structures. He saw flags lying on the ground, trampled by the feet of the victors and the fleeing defeated, he saw bodies stretched out on the cobbles stained with red and when he came closer he realised that they were his friends, all lying motionless, staring up at him with unseeing eyes…

And then he saw himself, backed into a corner, helpless, weaponless, brought to his knees by the overwhelming shadow of death around him… And instead of the encouraging whispers he used to detect from every corner, all he heard now was disdainful hissing:

"Schoolboy! Naive dreamer!"

"Murderer! Terrorist!"

"You led your friends to their deaths, and for what?"

The shadows were growing longer and death circled above him, filling his mind with still more images of destruction and failure as the abyss opened up...

ooo

"Combeferre! Combeferre!"

With a painful jolt Combeferre moved towards the summoning voice and, nearly falling out of his chair, woke up.

Enjolras was sitting upright on the edge of the bed, clutching at the blanket so hard that his knuckles turned white. His face was still a feverish pink and his shirt was drenched with sweat, yet the expression in his eyes was extraordinarily lucid.

"Tell me, Combeferre," he demanded with a fierce glare, "do you think I am leading you to your death?"

"Absolutely not," Combeferre hurried to say, cursing himself for having fallen asleep. "Come, lie back down."

"No," he insisted, "tell me, do you think so? Should we fail and be killed, would you blame me as your leader?"

Combeferre sat beside him and attempted to take his hand. "I would not," he said, this time considering the question seriously. "I am a man like yourself, I have been given reasoning like yourself, therefore I can make decisions with my own faculties."

"And should we die," Enjolras pressed on, "would you think that there we end, that our efforts were in vain and our forces wasted?"

He should not have let this conversation continue, but neither could he bring himslef to cut it short. "Would you?"

"Some would think so," Enjolras said, now suddenly quiet and pensive. "Yet we have a choice which way to turn. We could despair and plunge into the abyss, thinking ourselves frail and helpless and sinful, and thus fulfil all the expectations that the pessimists proclaim. We could give in to death and let it consume us, or we could grant ourselves immortality, simply by believing in mankind, by seeing the good it can bring. We can think that we are failing and send ourselves to the scaffold, or we can trust in ourselves and think beyond our own limits, beyond one barricade. We can say that in our failure we die, or we can live through the deeds of others whom our example had filled with fervour. We can meet Death on our knees, whimpering and pleading in vain, or we can greet it bravely to show those others that we were not afraid, and it is this latter that I choose!"

Grey dawn was emerging from behind the rooftops; the night was nearly over. Though Combeferre longed to reply, to discuss this statement and assert his agreement, he knew that to excite Enjolras further would cause grievous harm. Instead he simply pressed his arm, knowing that Enjolras would understand him.

He was grateful when Enjolras settled back on his pillows and was once more asleep, but soon this gratitude turned into fear. It had been three days and the fever showed no signs of abating, and now, as daylight began to filter into the room, his friend's face began to look distinctly waxen. What if, Combeferre thought desperately, that outburst of clarity was a sign of evil, a last flare of a candle before it extinguished?

There was nothing new he could think of doing, except perhaps that which he had avoided for all three days out of stupid sentimentality. Swaying with exhaustion, Combeferre stumbled across the room for the scissors.

Steeling his heart, Combeferre leant above Enjolras's sleeping profile, pulled out a random lock of hair and cut it off.

Soon there was a small heap of silken gold on the floor beside the bed. Without the hair crowning his head Enjolras looked ten years younger. His cheekbones jutted through his translucent skin undisguised, and his eyes, when he chanced to open them, seemed to Combeferre twice as large as before.

Almost collapsing back into his chair, Combeferre buried his face in his hands. He remembered Courfeyrac's words about the inevitability of this new illness and no longer had the strength to deny it.

Everything was his fault. At his behest Enjolras was subjected to any and all treatments which thus exhausted him, broke him down, made him more ill than he ever was at the beginning, all without the slightest scrap of improvement or justification. All he ever wanted was to cure him, how did it end up like this?

"I'm sorry," he whispered, taking Enjolras's limp hand in his. "What else could I have done? You know I only wanted what was best…"

The rest was cut off by a suppressed sob. For six months he didn't allow himself to despair, running from one treatment to another to ward off for just another day that awful realisation that there was nothing to be done, nothing at all.

He picked up a few locks of hair from the floor. In his hands, they were no longer the same liquid gold that adorned Enjolras's head only a few minutes ago but as faded and slack as any old doll's…

Why did he think it right to put a diagnosis on Enjolras's unfurling of wings? Was Enjolras not one of a kind, a creature living in a world that had nothing to do with everyday life, not to be judged by the standards of ordinary humans, never to be pressed into categories and criteria? Could he not have left him in peace to live the life he had chosen for himself?

If there was still a chance to do one thing more, it would be this: to release the bird from its cage. Combeferre could no longer restrain him and take away from him everything that he lived for. He imagined Enjolras as he had seen him every day for the past few months; bored, exasperated, worn down, with nothing to live for and nothing to expect apart from the daily dose of opium to help him sleep for a few hours and forget about it all. Was it not cruel, to leave him in this limbo for the rest of his life?

And could he really let him go back to his old pursuits, now, when the people were stirring and there was a real chance that Paris was about to see barricades?

Yes, the answer was yes, because having now cast away all his doubts Combeferre once more trusted Enjolras with his life. Wherever he was, whatever he did, Combeferre would be there with him and would protect him, come what may.

"Just be strong," he whispered, clutching Enjolras's hand, "be strong for a little longer, then I promise you that everything will be as it was. We will get rid of the doctor, we will stop all these treatments you hate so much, and I will find a way to make you suffer less than you do now. The people will rise and our plans will come into fruition; we will overthrow the king and install a republic, then we will go down to my cottage in Bordeaux and I will show you the apple orchards like you wanted… Anything you want, anything at all, just get better now!"

Perhaps Enjolras heard him, because soon he stirred and opened his eyes, as easily as after a nap. He looked up at him, and the tiny hint of a smile was enough for Combeferre to lean in and kiss him gently on the cheek.


	6. Chapter 5

"Will you really let me take charge of the revolutionary business again?"

"Yes, if you promise me to look after yourself."

Combeferre had discussed this matter with Courfeyrac and was reassured by the latter's unbridled assent. _You ought to have done so long ago, _Courfeyrac had said with a delighted laugh. It was very well for him to have said so, Combeferre thought, he did not have thousands of years of medical knowledge hanging around his neck like a guilt-inducing noose. If it really was true that Combeferre was leading his friend towards a break down by allowing him to indulge in the object of his monomania then Combeferre was ready to stand trial, an earthly or a heavenly one as was fit, and to be punished accordingly, since he could not longer let Enjolras suffer and suffocate as he had done.

Every night he lay awake in bed until the sky began to lighten faintly, torturing himself over the same question: was it really right to let an ill man participate in something that could potentially result in his death? Yet every night the same thought emerged victorious in his mind - apart from exceptional cases brought on by illness or trauma, Enjolras was perfectly in command of himself. He was not the lithographical madman thrashing around on the floor without any grasp on reality, instead he was an ordinary man with a non-life threatening chronic illness, except that this illness happened to be of the mind rather than of the body. Indeed, Combeferre began to wonder on the merits of separating the so called _alienés_ from society and treating them as children in need of a firm approach rather than the afflicted adults that they were. After all, was mental illness not in a large part biological in origin, as any other disease?

His point was proven by Enjolras's response to the news. There was no childish excitement, no glee or obsessive delight, only a serious nod and a grateful press of his hand.

The news must have spurred Enjolras on, because within two weeks he was out of bed, walking unsteadily up and down the room as he composed speeches (movement helps thought, Enjolras had once said), sometimes writing letters of direction at his desk, sometimes dictating them from his _chaise longue _to appease Combeferre's worries.

Very soon, it became painfully apparent to Combeferre that the restoration of meaning into Enjolras's life was not going to magically cure him. It would have taken a trip to the waters or to the sea to restore the colour into his cheeks and remove all the flagrant signs of exhaustion and stress that the last six months introduced into his face. He was not well in any sense of the word, though he perversely refused to admit any minor ailments to Combeferre. The rose in full bloom that he once resembled so well was now a little faded and beaten by the winds of the world, yet it had lost none of its ethereal, unearthly beauty.

Still, Combeferre intuitively knew that his choice had been the right one. Ill though he was, for the first time in six months Enjolras was also happy. Restored to his element, once again frequenting the Musain and heading the meetings of the Amis, there was an inner fuel that drove him which seemed to have completely disappeared before. So long as Enjolras was happy, Combeferre thought, there was a final consolation to hold onto.

On a sunny morning in April, as the birds outside were holding their own rehearsal of _La Sylphide, _ Enjolras lifted his head from his papers all of a sudden.

"You are still giving me opium to sleep," he said. "I want to be rid of that."

"I have lowered the dose already," Combeferre said. "Unfortunately you still need it."

"Surely I could do without it?"

"I do not doubt your self-will," he insisted, "I am sure that you could give it up if you chose to, yet that would not make you sleep."

"All the better," Enjolras sad blithely, "I need more time to formulate our plans."

"Enjolras, you promised me you would do nothing that would seriously harm your health."

Enjolras nodded. "Yet I also promised our group that when we make our stand, we will do so in the most effective and impregnable way possible. If we fail, I do not want the reason for our failure to be that I had spent the time I could have been consolidating our ranks in sleep. The common good must inevitably come before that of the individual."

"Rousseau never said that the individual's interests must be obliterated entirely," Combeferre objected. "Moreover, you know very well that the social contract depends on the entire community to sacrifice their individual rights, not on one person to do so. Equality over martyrdom or in other words, physician, cure thyself."

Enjolras chuckled, a pleasing variation on his usual expression of intense concetration. "The others are doing their tasks, as I must do mine."

The day approached. The people became still more restless as May came and went, hearing the reports of the illness of General Lamarque. Ammunition was flowing in, sometimes hidden in crates of fruit or sacks of grain, which they smuggled into the Musain on pretense of innocuous trade. Despite their conversation, Enjolras was martyring himself as usual. _You are working as if your life depended on it_, Combeferre had said once. _Our life does depend on it_, Enjolras replied with a stern glare.

On the 1st of June, Combeferre was woken up at dawn by Enjolras shaking him by the shoulder.

"Lamarque is dying," he announced before Combeferre had even gathered together any appropriate words. "I instructed a boy to report the events to me; he had just been here."

Combeferre sat up straight, letting the the blanket slide to the floor. "Then… has the time come?"

Enjolras's eyes wandered somewhere beyond Combeferre. The red tints of the sky reflected like streaks of blood on his hair, which by now crowned his head once again, though less luxuriantly than before.

"I think it has," he said at last.

As he was getting up to dress, the old weather couplets came to mind:

_Rouge le soir, bel espoir,_

_Rouge le matin, de la pluie en chemin._

He barely remembered the four days that followed, except that suddenly there was a whirlwind of rallies, taking stock of ammunition, funerals, frantic barricading, soldiers in red and blue coats, a shower of both rain and bullets, wounds to be treated, motivation to be given… Just as two years previous, on the barricades of the Trois Glorieuses, his quiet, aloof, serious Enjolras transformed into a glorious military leader, this time round seeming as if his wings were about to unfurl at any second. And though Combeferre had always known it would come to this, he was still shocked to see the atrocity of the killings around him, the vicious battles fought out for every inch of the barricade; aggrieved to witness the treachery of the spy; outraged at the shameless murder of civilians by one who seemed to be their man and pained to see the cold yet desperately sad glint in Enjolras's eyes as he passed judgement on him. And most of all, though the words had been said hundreds of times, somehow in his heart of hearts he did not expect to see Bahorel's corpse lying on the bloodstained cobbles, his eyes, once so lively, now dimmed forever, nor could he have ever predicted or brushed away as a necessary casualty of war the manly cry of Prouvaire and the peal of shots that followed… And though he knew very well not to expect mercy with a gun in hand, Combeferre had imagined that perhaps, somehow, the other side will remember that they were all merely brothers in the end and would take pity on them, not by abating the fight but simply by allowing them to take Prouvaire's body back…

Yet this was not to be, none of it, as Enjolras's ringing voice made clear on that divine morning, with the sky as fresh and rosy-fingered as a petal of the cherry tree… They were not to live, thus the people had decreed by their absence, and where Enjolras went, so would he. Come what may, the only way to separate them was by death, and Combeferre was determined that the death would be his first.

And quickly enough, too quickly, his wish was granted, before he could properly have a last conversation with the person that was dearer to him than life. It happened suddenly, cruelly, in such a way that made it clear for the final time that there was nothing of the fairy tale about their lives. An author, however untalented, would have thrown the two friends together, one shielding the other from attack, yet real life did not lend itself to pretty pictures and dramatic tales. Real life was a vicious blow on the shoulder as he was carrying a wounded soldier to safety, one of _their_ men since he did not distinguish between sides where suffering was concerned, a blow that sent him flying backwards on the pavement, then burning pain in his chest as the bayonet pierced it, one time, another, a third…

And then, in the seconds he still had as he lay there, the sounds of the battle ebbing and flowing at his ears, the blue sky gazing coldly at him from above, he thought of everything at the same time: of his mother, now childless; of his patients whom he will never again visit; of the fair horizons that will have to be established without him; and above all, of Enjolras…

Enjolras, who would now die without his closest friend at his side. Enjolras, whom he could have saved by sending him somewhere far away on the doctor's orders, to the waters or even to Africa.

Enjolras, without whom their barricade would be hollow and the revolution lacking in its soul.

And despite his dimming vision, Combeferre could still feel that the sky now was a softer shade of blue.


	7. Epilogue

"You have lost."

"I know."

Enjolras had known it from the early hours of the morning. His meticulous plans from that point onwards were to ensure that they held out as long as possible. _We shall sell ourselves dearly, _he had said to the men, and dearly the purchase of their lives was made. Inch by inch they retreated, first to the door of the Corinth, then inside, then up the stairs, leaving a trail of bodies behind them. Enjolras wanted Paris to remember.

On his swift but measured way back inside the tavern Enjolras had stumbled on a body, Courfeyrac's. A smirk was still visible on his bloodstained face, the rest was crushed by barricade debris. There was no time to mourn, to adjust that curl which he'd have judged out of place, or even to thank him, nor any of the lieutenants which, Enjolras assumed, had all _taken the diligence to another planet _by now.

His lieutenants and his friends, but there was no time to think of that, not when the battle was still fought and there was yet ground to retreat on. So Enjolras went on, reaching out mechanically for more weapons, pushing back the thoughts of the little group he had sent on their first revolutionary meeting years ago and of the anger that rose as a lump in his chest at the men who dared deprive him of them…

But there was no time, no time at all, the clock was ticking fast and there was much yet to be done. There were soldiers to be pushed out of the Corinth door, stairs to be hacked, bottles of _eau-de-vie_ to be lit and thrown, and was that Feuilly's body stretched out by the window on the second floor? It may have been, yet he could not think of that, not while there were still men standing around him, swiftly mown down by the bullets from below, because there was no quarter and no mercy to expect or desire, not from them.

And all of a sudden he was alone in the tavern room which no longer resembled anything earthly at all, alone without even a last missile to throw down or any weapon apart from an empty carbine. The soldiers below were about to break into the second floor, clinging onto the broken skeleton of the staircase.

"You have lost," someone repeated once more as he looked round the room for anything else to use as a weapon.

Had he lost? On the surface of things, yes. (Those bottles scattered around that table by the window could still be thrown at the men below.) The barricade had fallen and one of its last combattants was nearing his end. (The renewed cries of pain below told him that he had succeeded.) Yet there was a world beyond the barricade, a world that would wipe the blood of the cobbles and think of them in years to come. (A head appeared through the opening, Enjolras sent a blow with his carbine that hid it again.) There was a future, though he will not live to see it, and that future will remember the young men of the Rue de la Chanvrerie. (Two more almost came through, and now his carbine was broken.) They will remember, years later, that they sold their lives dearly, and what for? For freedom which it was now their task to achieve.

"No," Enjolras whispered with a contemptuous smile, "we haven't lost. We won."

And though he had not seen them for almost a year, as the sun rose to its summit outside, the angels of his childhood reappeared. The encouraging whispers filled his ears as he stood by the wall behind the billiard table, waiting for the soldiers to pile into the room, and this time, he could swear that he could hear Courfeyrac and Feuilly and Prouvaire and above all the calm voice of Combeferre.

The soldiers finally appeared, huddling around the former staircase. Enjolras looked at them and in their faces he could see nothing but terror, pain, distress… Now that the shard of the carbine was uselessly clenched in his fist, he pitied them.

"That's the chief," someone cried out. "He was the one that shot the artillery officer."

"He's put himself there, let him remain there. Shoot him!"

Enjolras smiled.

"Shoot me."


End file.
